Whatever your programming language, whatever your platform, you probably tap into linker and loader functions all the time. But do you know how to use them to their greatest possible advantage? Only now, with the publication of Linkers & Loaders, is there an authoritative book devoted entirely to these deep-seated compile-time and run-time processes. The book begins with a detailed and comparative account of linking and loading that illustrates the differences among various compilers and operating systems. On top of this foundation, the author presents clear practical advice to help you create faster, cleaner code. You'll learn to avoid the pitfalls associated with Windows DLLs, take advantage of the space-saving, performance-improving techniques supported by many modern linkers, make the best use of the UNIX ELF library scheme, and much more. If you're serious about programming, you'll devour this unique guide to one of the field's least understood topics. Linkers & Loaders is also an ideal supplementary text for compiler and operating systems courses.

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Review

"I enjoyed reading this useful overview of the techniques and challenges of implementing linkers and loaders. While most of the examples are focused on three computer architectures that are widely used today, there are also many side comments about interesting and quirky computer architectures of the past. I can tell from these war stories that the author really has been there himself and survived to tell the tale."―Guy Steele

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"I enjoyed reading this useful overview of the techniques and challenges of implementing linkers and loaders. While most of the examples are focused on three computer architectures that are widely used today, there are also many side comments about interesting and quirky computer architectures of the past. I can tell from these war stories that the author really has been there himself and survived to tell the tale." Guy Steele

Whatever your programming language, whatever your platform, you probably tap into linker and loader functions all the time. But do you know how to use them to their greatest possible advantage? Only now, with the publication of Linkers & Loaders, is there an authoritative book devoted entirely to these deep-seated compile-time and run-time processes.The book begins with a detailed and comparative account of linking and loading that illustrates the differences among various compilers and operating systems. On top of this foundation, the author presents clear practical advice to help you create faster, cleaner code. You'll learn to avoid the pitfalls associated with Windows DLLs, take advantage of the space-saving, performance-improving techniques supported by many modern linkers, make the best use of the UNIX ELF library scheme, and much more. If you're serious about programming, you'll devour this unique guide to one of the field's least understood topics. Linkers & Loaders is also an ideal supplementary text for compiler and operating systems courses.

Features:* Includes a linker construction project written in Perl, with project files available for download.* Covers dynamic linking in Windows, UNIX, Linux, BeOS, and other operating systems.* Explains the Java linking model and how it figures in network applets and extensible Java code.* Helps you write more elegant and effective code, and build applications that compile, load, and run more efficiently.|"I enjoyed reading this useful overview of the techniques and challenges of implementing linkers and loaders. While most of the examples are focused on three computer architectures that are widely used today, there are also many side comments about interesting and quirky computer architectures of the past. I can tell from these war stories that the author really has been there himself and survived to tell the tale." Guy Steele

Whatever your programming language, whatever your platform, you probably tap into linker and loader functions all the time. But do you know how to use them to their greatest possible advantage? Only now, with the publication ofLinkers & Loaders, is there an authoritative book devoted entirely to these deep-seated compile-time and run-time processes.The book begins with a detailed and comparative account of linking and loading that illustrates the differences among various compilers and operating systems. On top of this foundation, the author presents clear practical advice to help you create faster, cleaner code. You'll learn to avoid the pitfalls associated with Windows DLLs, take advantage of the space-saving, performance-improving techniques supported by many modern linkers, make the best use of the UNIX ELF library scheme, and much more. If you're serious about programming, you'll devour this unique guide to one of the field's least understood topics.Linkers & Loaders is also an ideal supplementary text for compiler and operating systems courses.

Features:* Includes a linker construction project written in Perl, with project files available for download.* Covers dynamic linking in Windows, UNIX, Linux, BeOS, and other operating systems.* Explains the Java linking model and how it figures in network applets and extensible Java code.* Helps you write more elegant and effective code, and build applications that compile, load, and run more efficiently.

This book is a great deal for everyone interested in how does linking and loading work under the hood. It goes clearly and steadily from basic notions of architecture into the gory details of linking and loading on multiple platforms. Definitely the best on the topic I've ever read.

4.0 out of 5 starsNice coverage of some of the black magic of linking and loading

ByPeeter Jooton 4 March 2017 - Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

This book provides detailed information about what is required to implement both linkers and loaders. The concepts covered are treated in terms of real world architectures, spanning S/390, X86, and sparc among others. Concepts like symbol tables, relocation, position independent code, global variables, and others are all covered in depth.

This is a surprisingly small book for the amount of information that it contains. I'd recommend it for those that have to dabble in the low level guts of systems programming, and for those that would like to understand in more depth some of the tools we rely on as programmers without necessarily knowing the details of how they work.

This isn't an easy book to read. I've done a once through it myself to get high level overview of a number of the concepts and plan to refer to specific portions of it again in detail as required in some of my upcoming work.

ByGuilherme Maciel Ferreiraon 15 December 2016 - Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase

This book is the only one of its kind. It describes how linkers and loaders work. Most books describe the compilation process, where the text source code becomes machine code. However, this is the only one that describes how those compiled objects (with machine code) are glued together.

But this book is seriously dated and some parts are too hard to understand. I found the chapter 7 of "Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective" better than this one whole book.